Representations should be an integral part of expanding students' mathematical knowledge. They are not additional mathematical content that must be taught, but rather tools for communicating and analyzing mathematical relationships. In the course of solving and discussing well-chosen problems, students can develop understanding of specific types of representation while also expanding their grasp of the related mathematics content. The choice of problems and representations used in a classroom is a critical link to such learning.

Use the information learned in this session to plan a lesson for one of your classes. Think first about your goals related to specific content and to relevant representations. Choose a compelling problem situation and plan how you will support your students as they solve the problem and expand their facility with a variety of representations and concepts. You may want to consider a task that incorporates the use of technology (a calculator, a spreadsheet, or software) as one of the representations.

Use a problem you teach in your subject area, or select one of the samples from the Learning Math course or other resources.

After you have created your lesson plan, use the Classroom Checklist (an Adobe PDF document) to evaluate it.

  Finish the session